"Learn and live. If you don't, you won't."
(WWII U.S. Army training film)

The DOCTOR YOURSELF NEWSLETTER (Vol 2, No 22) September 20, 2002
"Free of charge, free of advertising, and free of the A.M.A."
Written by Andrew Saul, PhD. of http://www.doctoryourself.com , a free online
library of over 350 natural healing articles with nearly 4,000 scientific
references.

CHARITABLE VITAMIN DISPENSARIES AND HOW TO OPEN ONE
It all started 20 years ago at a soup kitchen. I was volunteering a small
bit of time at St. Joseph's house of Hospitality in inner-city Rochester,
NY. St. Joe's, as it is locally known, feeds about a hundred poor people
daily. Not everyone who comes in for the free lunch is starving, but some
are. At the beginning of the first sitting, I happened to see one little
boy, about 6 years old or so, who really seemed to be looking forward to
his meal that day. I saw what he had set in front of him: an enormous
helping of a simple type of goulash (macaroni, hamburger, tomato sauce).

"Are you really going to eat all that?" I asked him, smiling.

"Yes I am," he answered, with a far bigger smile.

And he was right, too. Did that kid ever eat. He finished his first
plateful so fast he must have inhaled it. He had seconds, and thirds,
and quite possibly fourths that I wasn't fast enough to see. I had never
witnessed a child eat that much before, and my own kids had hefty
appetites of their own, let me tell you.

The impression this made on me was pretty strong. It occurred to me,
yummy and filling though goulash might be, that this child's overall
nutritional needs probably were not being met. He, and every other person
off the street, needed a daily vitamin supplement as well as their daily
bread.

The staff at St.. Joe's unhesitatingly agreed, and with the help of
donations, I raised enough money to provide a high-potency multivitamin
to each person who wanted one, served right along with their free meal.

This program was successful and expanded. In an interview with The Mother
Earth News (Jan-Feb 1984, Issue 85,
http://www.doctoryourself.com/motherearth.html ), I told of
additional benefits of vitamins for transients:

"Simple, easily available vitamins can actually fight drug addiction.
I've written to (then First Lady) Nancy Reagan and expressed my support
for her fight against drug abuse in children. And I told her of our
work with our vitamin dispensary that serves the poor in Rochester. We
have seen substance abuse trail off when individuals get adequate
vitamin supplements. . . especially B vitamins and vitamin C in
substantial quantities. I suggested to Mrs. Reagan that she help
develop a national vitamin supplementation program. Naturally, all
I got in reply was a polite letter from her press secretary. Yet I've
talked to street people who were so drunk they couldn't stand up
without my holding them. We get such alcoholics on vitamin C and
B-complex, though, and those individuals can get off the booze.
And that means a lot."

Though funding eventually became a problem, we have recently decided
to re-open the dispensary. As you read this, St. Joe's is not only
feeding the hungry but is also helping each person to better health
with free nutritional supplementation.

WHAT DOES IT COST: When money is tight, I get the cheapest, most basic
"Centrum"-like generic multivitamin that I can find, which is about
three cents per tablet at Wal-Mart. However, I greatly prefer to
provide a high-potency multivitamin that has significantly larger
amounts of the B-complex and vitamin C. This supplement costs about
seven cents per tablet when I order it wholesale in quantity. (No, you
cannot get it at Wal-Mart, and requests sent to me as to where to buy
this or any other supplement will not be answered. My readers know
I simply will not get involved in commercial issues.)

Seven cents per tablet for one hundred people is seven dollars a day,
or approximately $200 each month. It is actually a little cheaper than
that, since not every person chooses to take a vitamin.

IF YOU WANT TO HELP: This time, we want this program to continue
uninterrupted. The best part of it is that it is very cost-efficient.
This is an all-volunteer effort. Every cent we receive in donations
goes to purchase vitamins for the poor. There is no overhead. Any
donations we may receive are not tax-deductible. My address is at
the bottom of this Newsletter if you would like to assist.

We have a waiting list of charities in other towns that would like
free vitamins provided to them. There is no limit to how far this
idea can go. For instance, you might want to start such a program
where you live. Here's how:

GUIDELINES FOR CREATING A VITAMIN DISPENSARY IN YOUR COMMUNITY
I personally follow the "Ready, Fire, Aim" approach: Just do it.
There are no doubt other, more dignified ways to proceed, but this
is how I would (and did) go about it.

1) Do not reinvent the wheel. Find the service organization(s) that
already are feeding the poor. These may include public free-food
shelves, civic groups, fraternal societies, clubs, community centers,
outreach programs and churches. Call them up, find who is in charge,
and pitch the idea. My experience is that either they will immediately
like it, or they won't. It has never taken me more than five minutes
to sell the idea or know that I can't.

2) Line up your sources. Ask health food stores, doctors' offices,
retailers, vitamin distributors, and vitamin manufacturers to give
you bottles of multivitamin tablets. Samples or nearly outdated
supplements might be especially easy to get. If you do not get
product donations, maybe you can at least get a special price.
Ask. Comparison shop. Search the 'Net.

3) Keep it free and keep it volunteer. This is the secret to
simplicity, efficiency, credibility, and legality. If all money
raised is spent on vitamins for the poor, complications are very
unlikely. Keep a simple record of cash donations received and save
receipts for all supplements purchased. I am not a financial or
legal authority; when in doubt, look up the law with the help of
your public librarian.

4) Ask friends and family to help. Remember too that this is a
newsworthy project. Most local newspapers and TV news programs run
a special Thanksgiving feature on what the homeless are doing for
their holiday dinner. Here is the perfect match up for such human
interest pieces.

I have math anxiety, and you can thank the "New Math" for that.
In elementary school, we were taught a completely different system
of arithmetic every single year. As an innocent product of this
confusion, I was still counting on my fingers in sixth grade.
Sure, the class brainiacs could do problems in base seven, and took
pride in doing homework that parents (and even older brothers) could
not comprehend. The flip side was that the rest of us did not know
even our basic multiplication tables, or what hillbilly scholar
Jethro Clampett called "ciphering." I probably had more ability
with imaginary numbers than with the real ones. I understood the
binary system and Venn diagrams, yet routinely bungled even simple
long division. That's the "New Math" for you. As musical satirist
(and former Harvard math professor) Tom Lehrer says, "The important
thing is to understand what you are doing rather than to get the
right answer."

So we ended up with a lot of fairly useless knowledge and virtually
no practical ability in getting the job done.

This closely resembles modern medicine.

In math, "X" generally indicates an unknown quantity. But there is
nothing unknown about the quantity of Americans that die annually
due to diseases discussed in Syndrome X: cardiovascular disease,
diabetes, obesity and cancer. The total is astounding: over 1.6 million
dead. Per year. This actually exceeds the number of all American
soldiers killed in all the wars we have ever fought, put together.

Pharmacological medicine has failed to stem this grim tide. What's
worse, drug medicine has become a major killer in its own right.
Syndrome X makes no bones about it, citing a 1998 JAMA study reporting
that "106,000 hospitalized patients die annually because of adverse
drug reactions and 2,216,000 other hospitalized patients have serious
but nonfatal drug reactions. . . (A)dverse drug reactions could rank
as the fourth leading cause of death, after heart disease, cancer,
and stroke." (p. 55)

The extent to which physicians doggedly employ pharmaceuticals
indicates the extent to which they are unfamiliar with a safe and
effective alternative already right at hand: preventive and
therapeutic nutrition. When their ever-sick patients trustingly
line up for still more drug prescriptions, surely the blind have
been led by the blind.

I value Syndrome X's appropriate and unhesitating criticism of
drug-and-cut medicine. However, the book's outstanding feature
is its straightforward what-you-can-do-about-it approach,
complete with both preventive and therapeutic diet plans.
I like practical, do-it-yourself advice that is clearly presented,
well organized, and reference-filled. And I especially like books
that recommend high doses of vitamins and low doses of sugar.

Syndrome X is such a book. It is based to a considerable degree
on the pioneering work of Surgeon-Captain Thomas L. Cleave of the
British Royal Navy. Half a century ago, Dr. Cleave stood virtually
alone as he made one of the first strong scientific cases showing
that sugar causes diabetes and a variety of other serious diseases.
His classic book, The Saccharine Disease (all about sugar, not the
artificial sweetener, and reviewed at
http://www.doctoryourself.com/morebooks.html ) was among the first
to rigorously condemn modern man's gross over consumption of
refined carbohydrates. While dietitians (with the full support
of the food processing industry) have relentlessly denied any
such connection, time and research have proven Cleave right.

Syndrome X is written for those fed up with chronic illness. It
wastes no words, promptly zeroing in on insulin resistance as a
major cause of life-wrecking obesity, fatigue, and adult-onset
(Type II) diabetes. Heart disease, still our number one killer,
is presented by the authors for what it truly is: a nutritional
disease that must be prevented with nutrition and cured by nutrition.
And although it is by no means the book's emphasis, cancer's roots
in malnutrition are also presented.

Everybody knows that reducing their intake of dietary fat is a
good idea. Syndrome X presses further, urging people to cut down
on, or better yet cut out, refined carbohydrates. To the extent
that this means sugar and processed, useless white flour, I could
not agree more. But Syndrome X also promotes the somewhat
controversial Robert C. Atkins dietary ideal of a relatively high
intake animal protein. Animal rights issues aside, I think this is
not necessary, nor even a good idea. American diets are already
high-protein, many of us eating three or more times the amount of
protein we actually require. Long term heavy protein use overloads
the kidneys and contributes to early membership in the
dialysis-for-lunch bunch.

This may not have been a worry for high-risk, short-lived cave men.
These original eaters of the Paleolithic Diet that (along with the
Mediterranean and Atkins diets) forms the basis of the book's "Anti-X"
diet, probably had enough trouble finding anything to eat. Certainly
their diet was very low in sugar. It was probably low in all
carbohydrates. For that matter, it was probably low in everything.
Ancient hunters were not awash in meat. They were opportunistic and
ate what they could get and were lucky to get it. Ever notice how
skinny cheetahs are? Nine out of ten cheetah attacks fail to bring
down a gazelle. I doubt if humans fared all that much better than
could a 50-mile-per-hour sprinting set of claws.

As written, Syndrome X is not pleasant bedtime reading for vegetarians.
Since my sympathy has been in the meatless camp for so long now (my
now-adult children were raised vegetarian), I think a virtually-vegetarian
version of the book might be a particularly good idea. It is also quite
possible that the reader can make the necessary veggie adjustments.
For instance, nuts and especially seeds are encouraged in the "Anti-X"
diet, and they are very good protein sources indeed as long as they
are well-chewed. The authors also correctly point out the special
value of omega-3 "fish oils" which may, to many people's surprise,
be obtained from green leafy vegetables and even walnuts (p. 94). For
near-vegetarians, the book's support of eggs and low-fat dairy should
go down easy. But I must say that, as a big fan of oriental cuisine,
the how-to-eat-at-restaurants (Chapter 8) recommendation of having
Chinese food with no rice was, for me at least, approaching the
impossible.

Lest the wrong impression endure, I wish to praise Syndrome X's
relentless sugar-bashing. THOSE carbos should go, and without a
farewell kiss. But I remain a complex-carbo kind of guy, and I have
something of an organic-brown-rice macrobiotic streak in me. Whole
grains, oatmeal, sweet potatoes and especially legumes (lentils and
beans) are high on my list but middle-to-low on the Anti-X diet plan
(p.86). Yet the book's constant stress on whole, high-fiber,
unprocessed foods is in general excellent. It is the protein-carbohydrate
issue where I disagree.

And now for some unequivocal praise. Chapters 12 through 15 are superb
discussions of the value of vitamins E, C, minerals, and other important
nutrients, respectively. Recommendations of 400 to 800 International
Units (IU) of vitamin E and 2,000 to 4,000 milligrams of vitamin C
are right after my own heart (and very good for yours). I have never
seen a better guide to purchasing vitamin E than will be found on pages
181-183. Chromium (up to 1,000 micrograms) and magnesium, zinc, selenium,
manganese and even newcomer vanadium are all discussed, and discussed
well. Coenzyme Q-10, the vitamin C-helping flavinoids, and a number of
herbs are considered in brief. Alpha lipoic acid supplementation is
singled out for detailed consideration in Chapter 11, a chapter that
taught me a great deal. Exercise suggestions, recipes, resources, and
guidelines for customizing the diet for your particular needs round
out the book.

Syndrome X has a personal "talking to you" style that I enjoy very much.
It is easy to read and nonetheless backed up with over 100 scientific
studies. It is well designed and user friendly, with many summaries
and boxes to highlight key information.

I may still have some residual math anxiety, but I have no hesitation
in recommending Syndrome X. No, I am not going to stop advocating
near-vegetarianism, because I do believe it to be the very best of
diets. But, unlike the proponents of the New Math, I do not care a
fig as to exactly how you get the right result as long as you do in
fact get it. Syndrome X's message is close enough for me: improve your
diet and you will improve your life.

That's an answer we can all agree on.

(Principal author Jack Challem responds: )
"I'll explain some of my/our thinking. The diet plan is not really
an Atkins' style plan. Ours is protein rich, not high protein.
Considerable anthropological evidence (papers by Cordain, Eaton)
indicates that there have been no fully vegetarian societies. The
majority of Paleo and modern Stone Age societies were animal protein
dominant, a few were vegetarian dominant, and a few were pretty evenly
divided. I think the Paleo hunter-gatherer diet is our evolutionary
and genetic baseline, which orthomolecular health should build upon.
Grains and legumes provide large amounts of carbs, and (a personal
observation) many vegetarians don't eat much in the way of vegetables --
they're hooked on breads and pastas and muffins. Two new books that
explore the health hazards of grains are Going Against the Grain,
by Melissa Diane Smith (who actually conceived our "Anti-X" diet plan)
and Dangerous Grains, by James Braly.

"I have had other vegetarians ask me about an "Anti-X" diet plan
geared to vegetarians. Apparently, there are a number of vegetarians
with insulin resistance. My feeling is this: if a particular diet
is making someone sick, that is not the right diet plan for them.
Again, the problem may be vegetarians who aren't really very smart.
I think a vegetarian could construct a good diet high in veggies
and low in grain-based carbs. But many vegetarians simply avoid
animal products, and that does not ensure a good diet.

"I certainly agree that cutting out the junk may be the most
important step; once that's done and adhered to, it almost doesn't
matter what "good" foods a person eats. The bottom line is simple:
you know the type of diet that makes you feel your best. Likewise
for me. It's a testament to biochemical individuality."

(Jack Challem, aka "The Nutrition Reporter," publishes an excellent
print newsletter of the same name. His website is
http://www.thenutritionreporter.com )

READERS SAY
'ALLO, 'ALLO, ALOE!
"You forgot to include aloe vera, squeezed fresh from the plant,
among your burn remedies listed in the last issue
(Doctor Yourself Newsletter, Vol. 2, No 21
http://www.doctoryourself.com/news/v2n21.txt ). I have used it
for years and it works very well."

"You may wish to add aloe aera to your list of helps for
esophagitis. Drinking some aloe juice really helps soothe
and heal the esophagus."

Right you both are. Thank you for keeping me honest.

BE PREPARED
How will you get your vitamins should CODEX restrictions become
the law of the land? By eating lots of megadose munchies: the foods
of the true health nut.

FOODS THAT ARE THEMSELVES SUPPLEMENTS
* NUTRITIONAL or BREWER'S YEAST (Vitamin B-12, other B-vitamins,
Chromium, Selenium) Like most foods, these won't fit into tablets.
Try hiding the flavor in pineapple juice. You may prefer the taste
of primary-grown nutritional yeast, as it is not a byproduct of
beer making. Debittered brewers' yeast also offers a taste
improvement.

* WHEAT GERM (Vitamin E, magnesium, B-vitamins, protein) If vacuum
packed, one of the very best foods in the supermarket. Only buy
very fresh, refrigerated wheat germ at the health food store.
The nose knows: smell to tell if it is fresh.

* SPROUTED GRAINS, SPROUTED BEANS (complete protein, all vitamins
and minerals, fiber) Eat raw and often. The best food at the salad
bar. Probably the most complete food you'll find. Low calorie and
cheap to grow at home. If I had only one food to recommend, it would
be this.

* FRESH, RAW VEGETABLE JUICE (carotene, minerals and vitamins in
general, fiber) Tastes great and is better for you than any beverage
on Earth. Get a juicer, and use it! No bottled vitamins can compare
to an uncooked, concentrated extract of veggies. Drink some daily.

* WHEATGRASS JUICE (Large quantities of vitamin C, vitamins and
minerals in general, chlorophyll) Wheat is cheap. Sprout it in
your kitchen! On a flat tray or two, under a bit of soil,
you can have an indoor sprout farm. When several inches high,
harvest with regular scissors. Add a bit of water while putting
the wheatgrass through the juicer.

* YOGURT (calcium, phosphorus, beneficial acidophilus bacteria,
protein, B-vitamins) About the easiest dairy food to digest and
absorb. Dilute with water as an alternative to milk. Ever notice
that over one-third of most "fruited" yogurts is sugar-laden jam?
Buy plain and
sweeten it yourself.

* LECITHIN Granules by the tablespoon beat those horse pills that
contain only 1.2 grams of the stuff. Cheapest, best source of
choline, linolenic acid, phospholipids and inositol. Totally
vegetarian. Start small and gradually increase your daily lecithin.

* WHOLE WHEAT, BARLEY, OATS, BROWN RICE (fiber, vitamins and minerals,
protein, complex carbohydrates) Who needs extra bran or laxatives
when you can just eat the fiber-rich whole grain in the first place?

* NUTS are rich in magnesium and protein. They are not fattening
unless they are salted and oiled such that you overeat and
under-chew them. Slow down, eat them in their natural state,
and consider them a meat-replacing main course.

* MOLASSES (iron, and more) Avoid bitter-tasting blackstrap and
select a "primary" or sweet molasses as an alternative to
junk-food snacks.

* FRESH FRUIT AND RAW VEGETABLES are loaded with fiber, potassium,
and bioflavinoids, in addition to their well-known, if modest,
quantities of vitamins and minerals. So eat a lot of them. My kids
would, literally, make eight trips per meal to any all-you-can-eat
salad bar that was fool enough to let us in. I was right behind them.
So if you cannot megadose with tablets, megadose with low-calorie raw
foods.

Do I eat this way? Sure do. Do I expect you to? Well, that depends.
But if you do not like the idea of losing your options, let your
demand for free access to high-potency vitamin supplements be heard
immediately
( http://www.doctoryourself.com/write_now.html ).

READERS ASK ABOUT COUGHING
"Now that school has started, how about some information on natural c
ough remedies before the cold-and-flu season?"

COLTSFOOT herb (Tussilago farfara) leaves made into a tea remains
one of the best cough medicines I know of. You can buy dried coltsfoot
at any herb store and at many health food stores. It is not expensive
and has a low likelihood of side effects with occasional use. (Not for
use during pregnancy or nursing. I recommend a library or internet
search for "coltsfoot herb toxicity."
http://www.healthwell.com/healthnotes/Herb/Coltsfoot.cfm and
http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/faqs/medi-3-12-cough.html are especially
well-balanced resources.) As an alternative to even riskier patent or
prescription cough medicines, herbal remedies deserve fair consideration.

Use a tablespoon or two of herb to each mug of hot water. For an adult,
several mugs full can even stop the cough of pneumonia. I know, because
I had pneumonia and was sick as a dog... a constantly coughing dog, that
is. Prescription cough medicine WITH CODEINE did not touch it. Three mugs
of coltsfoot tea eliminated coughing for hours. It is the only cough remedy
we ever needed in our house.

Cough is generally a symptom of some other problem in the body. It is
wise to "pull the rug out from under" the cough by helping the rest of
the body get well. Vegetable juicing does that better than anything I
know.
( http://www.doctoryourself.com/juicefast.html and
http://www.doctoryourself.com/juicing_2.html ) Healthy bodies do not cough.

Whether it is a cold, flu, or pneumonia, strengthening one's immune system
with extra vitamin can only help. I've written elsewhere about how to treat
viral illness with vitamin C
( http://www.doctoryourself.com/colds.html ,
http://www.doctoryourself.com/ortho_c.html
and http://www.doctoryourself.com/vitaminc2.html ). A simple reminder:
"Take enough C to be symptom free, whatever the amount might be."
That is usually just under the amount that would result in loose bowels.

When my daughter was four years old, she had a bad cough. We endured it
for two nights while doing everything doctors suggest. Yes, she had strict
bed rest. Yes, she even had codeine cough syrup. Yes, she still was coughing
after 48 hours of this and yes, I'd had enough. While my wife escaped to
go bowling, I was sufficiently sick of sickness to start my daughter on a
teaspoon (about 4,000 milligrams) of vitamin C crystals in juice every
hour. When my wife returned, the cough was gone. We continued to give
this little girl vitamin C for the rest of the day, and she remained
quiet and comfortable. She had a total of 36,000 mg of "C" since about
1 PM.

During the night the cough came back. We got up, gave her a teaspoon
of Vitamin C, and everyone was shortly asleep once again. The next
morning, the cough was back again, and we met it with vitamin C every
hour. We kept that cough down by keeping her "C" up. It worked.

I tell you this to let you know that I've been there too. Those
all-night battles for a sick child are really tough. Vitamin C and
coltsfoot are tough, too. When you really need them, they really work.

And everybody sleeps much better.

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